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As the world awaits a likely Israeli strike on Iran, conflicting reports have emerged about the targets, with two Israeli officials telling The New York Times that nuclear sites could be on the target list, but were not an immediate consideration.
Some experts say Israel would be unable to seriously damage underground Iranian nuclear sites without US support, raising the question of other options – potentially a ground raid to reach the deepest buried targets that could be impervious to bombing.
“The Israelis have the technology. The question is what’s the target?” says James Stejskal, a veteran of US army special forces and the CIA. “We’re told it won’t be oil infrastructure, or nuclear facilities, or military bases, if those reports are to be believed.”
The possibility of a ground raid was reported by Foreign Policy in 2012. If a recent high-risk Israeli raid in Syria is any guide – to strike a hardened underground weapons research site – this could still be on the table.
According to the report, which quotes unnamed Pentagon officials, several hundred elite commandos from the Sayeret Matkal unit would land in Iran in C-130 Hercules aircraft, near Fordow, one of the most heavily guarded underground nuclear sites, penetrating and blowing up the complex and well-protected equipment, such as centrifuges for uranium enrichment.
Iran has dozens of other sites, spread around the country, where elements of a nuclear weapons programme could be hidden, including efforts to “miniaturise” a warhead to fit it on a ballistic missile.
“Putting boots on the ground would require precision, a lot of assets and advance force assistance – either resistance forces or very special Israeli clandestine units. And overwhelming firepower on the target,” says Mr Stejskal, author of multiple books on special operations.
Israel is believed to have sympathisers within Iran who have assisted high-risk operations, such as a 2018 raid on a warehouse containing secret documents on Iran's nuclear programme, and sabotage at multiple nuclear programme sites.
“It might be quieter, rather than landing a raiding force, to Halo (High Altitude, Low Opening) parachute in, get picked [up] by helicopters or fixed-wing aircraft at a remote site. It would be very dicey and would require the destruction of all anti-aircraft assets in the area, requiring a large air operation.”
The 2012 report said it was one of several Israeli options, dubbing it the Entebbe Option, after the 1976 commando raid in Uganda to rescue 248 hostages held after a plane hijacking by German extremist group Baader-Meinhof and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. In that operation, 100 Israeli commandos flew 4,000km in Hercules transport planes, refuelling in Kenya.
Israel currently operates seven C-130J cargo planes, a variant of the aircraft used by US Special Forces that has a range of up to 3,800km, well within the shortest route between Israel and Iran – across Jordan, Syria and Iraq – of 1,000km.
The aircraft is famous for being able to land on dirt landing strips or highways, and can carry two Humvee armoured vehicles, taking up about 15,000lb of its 40,000lb payload – and reducing range. Flying low below radar beams also takes up additional fuel, adding further constraints to an already complex mission.
Syria raid
Would such a daring operation be mounted again? Evidence suggests there is some risk appetite after a reported ground raid in Masyaf, Syria, targeting a deeply buried structure in the Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Centre, in September.
US and Israeli officials told multiple news outlets that Shaldag Special Forces had destroyed equipment in an underground laboratory, backed by heavy air strikes on Syrian forces responding to the raid. Reports sounded sensational, but nothing described was unprecedented.
Several famous raids stand out for extreme distance and risk. The National has previously discussed two well-known operations, Operation Rooster 53 and Operation Eagle Claw, but there are several others.
Operation Ivory Coast involved a hand-picked group of US Special Forces attempting to free prisoners at a North Vietnamese camp at Son Tay in 1970, a heavily defended site less than 40km from Hanoi.
The prisoners had been relocated, but not before 116 aircraft had been deployed in the operation, with the helicopter raiding force flying 1,000km, often through mountainous valleys at night, to the target. In 1969’s Operation Rooster 53, Israeli commandos stole a six-tonne Egyptian radar system and flew it back to Israel for examination.
But 1980’s Operation Eagle Claw may be the closest to what an Israeli raid in Iran might look like. US Delta Force commandos flew 1,600km in a force of helicopters and Hercules aircraft – with six of the planes flying from aircraft carriers and an island near Oman.
The plan was to rescue 50 US citizens held by Iranian revolutionaries at the US embassy in Tehran. The planes, flying through sand storms, were to be refuelled in the air and at a rendezvous point, a remote dirt road in central Iran code named Desert One. But the operation was derailed when one of the helicopters crashed into a Hercules.
More recently, 2003’s Operation Ugly Baby saw US commandos fly 1,600km to Sulaymaniyah, in the northern Kurdish region of Iraq, to link up with friendly Kurdish militia fighters, a low-altitude flight skimming the edges of Iraq, with several aircraft limping to the landing point after being hit.
Eagle Claw might be the best precedent, says Frank Sobchak, a former Special Forces officer and historian at the Modern Warfare Institute at West Point in the US. But he says, the complexity and danger of that operation, despite massive US resources, points to it being an unlikely choice.
“What the gain would be for the risk would really drive the decision to mount a ground raid. If Iran has widely dispersed critical aspects of its nuclear programme, that changes the equation more towards ‘no go',” he says.
Mr Sobchak, who recently wrote Training for Victory: US Special Forces Advisory Efforts from El Salvador to Afghanistan, says even the US would struggle with such an operation.
“A second factor is logistics. There are very few countries that can pull something like Eagle Claw or Ugly Baby over such a distance because of everything that would be required to make it happen. Aerial refuelling tankers, close air support, enough ground forces so they can hold their own, which would need to be sizeable, and accomplish the mission. A base to stage from – bases for planes and helicopters to land if damaged or mechanical issues happen.”
Of the reported 2012 “Entebbe Option”, one US official told Foreign Policy that Israeli forces could potentially find a remote site in Iraq for refuelling.
“With the distances involved, I honestly don't know if they even had enough resources (aerial refuellers) to be able to make a strike package work. And then, if the targets are dispersed over multiple sites, it is low down on the list of likely scenarios.”
In terms of resources, the US has often had multiple support aircraft available for high-risk missions, including dedicated medical evacuation. In 2011’s Operation Neptune Spear – the raid to kill Osama bin Laden in Pakistan – US commandos flew a 400km round trip in stealthy UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters, with a backup helicopter available in case one was lost – which happened when one of the aircraft crashed.
A large force of Pakistani soldiers was stationed near the raid site and it later emerged that Pakistani aircraft fired on the raiding force as they returned to a US base in Afghanistan.
“The US is able to make it happen because we just have so many resources, especially in the logistical department of transports and aerial refuellers and air bases – or mobile ones – such as aircraft carriers,” Mr Sobchak says.
